El Cientifico
by atrosie
Summary: A staged murder in Connecticut draws the attention of Booth and Brennan. But Mara Muerte’s not finished with Brennan, and they’re not afraid to show it.
1. Chapter 1

Title: **El Cientifico**

Author: atrosie

Rating: M

Pairings: B/B eventually

Spoilers: Anything and everything.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bones, nor do I own the BSC. And I wouldn't want to own the _Mara Muerte_ gang. Title of the story belongs to Coldplay; title of the chapter belongs to Jonatha Brook. And I obviously don't own Walt Whitman, or his quotes.

Summary: A staged murder in Connecticut draws the attention of Booth and Brennan.

But _Mara Muerte's_ not finished with Brennan, and they're not afraid to show it.

A/N: I don't speak Spanish, so anything here comes from AltaVista's Babel Fish translator. Mistakes would belong to both of us, I guess. Spanish is in italics. Comments and critiques are always appreciated. Thanks to everyone who reviewed my other story!

**Prologue: Genius or a Fool**

"What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the words I have read in my life."

Walt Whitman

"The threat has yielded an unexpected result, _Senor_."

Roberto Ortez stared at the floor, ignoring the thick smoke hanging in the air and the pounding of the nightclub music below him.

"What result is that, 'Berto?" The voice was smooth as molasses, and just as thick.

Roberto raised his head and stared at his boss, the true leader of the D.C. chapter of the _Mara Muerte_, a man who went by _Senor_ and nothing else. Truly, he didn't need any other name.

"He's in love with the woman, _Senor._ He threatened me, told me he'd kill me, and the way he looked when he said it … he's in love with her."

"And he told you to call the hit off, _si_?" _Senor_ smiled. "We'll do no such thing, of course." The smile became more cruel than amused, and Roberto shivered. "Call our man in Connecticut. This woman investigates bones, and I intend to give her some. Make sure he knows what to do, 'Berto, because we want the FBI called in – and we want her called in with them."

Roberto nodded and turned to leave, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket.

"And 'Berto – I don't want her to come to us dead. I want her tortured, and I imagine you'd like that yourself. Make sure he understands, 'Berto."

"_Si, senor. Mara Muerte por siempre!_"

Roberto headed for the outside stairs, scrolling through the cell phone's contacts list and thinking about the pretty scientist. She would be fun to torture, he imagined, all tied up and blindfolded, with no FBI agent to protect her.

She would scream, he would make sure of that.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Again, Bones does not belong to me. The story title belongs to Coldplay, and the chapter title belongs to Richard O'Brien.

A/N: Any Spanish found within comes courtesy of AltaVista's BabelFish Translator, so mistakes belong to both of us. This chapter would not exist without Shanna's encouragement. Thanks darling!

Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed, and apologies for the lateness of this chapter. I hope you enjoy!

**Chapter One: Rose Tint My World**

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it."

- Groucho Marx

"So then he says he'll call me over the weekend, but Saturday goes by without a word, and Sunday follows. I ask him yesterday why he didn't call, and he makes up some lame excuse about having too much homework. Apparently, he couldn't take five minutes away from his math to give me a quick call, ask me how I was doing, anything."

"So that's why we're not talking to him today?" Mary Anne Spier studied her best friend closely. Despite the obvious anger, she suspected something else was wrong between Kristy Thomas and her boyfriend. Cary Retlin not calling when he said he would was certainly something that would piss Kristy off, but not to this extent. "What else happened? You weren't this mad yesterday."

Kristy sighed. "Charlie called," she said, referring to her older brother, who was currently a business major at Colorado State University. "He's not coming home for his spring break."

"Oh, that's too bad. Did he say why not?"

"Yeah, something about a great deal for Mexico. He's just going for the alcohol and the slutty girls that'll be there. You should've heard Mom when he told her."

Mary Anne could imagine what she'd said. Kristy was like her mom, loud and not afraid to voice her opinions. The two girls were hanging around in the teacher's parking lot north of the high school, waiting for Mrs. Gibson, their science teacher. She'd asked them to help her carry in some things before school started, and mentioned something about extra credit, and they'd readily agreed.

The teacher soon appeared, her early-90's Ford Taurus sputtering to a stop near them. "Good morning, girls!" she called out cheerily, and they headed over.

Mrs. Gibson was a short, chunky woman in her early 50s, graying and with piercing gray eyes; a woman not given to sympathy over missing homework assignments, but perfectly nice if you did your work and tried hard. Mary Anne liked her because she didn't tolerate the excuses the jocks used; if anything, she was harder on them then the rest of her students. Plus, she handed out gloves when they did dissections, something that Mary Anne certainly appreciated.

The teacher popped her trunk and gestured to them. "I have an actual skeleton in here, girls. His name is Mr. Roboto, and he's very old, which is why I keep him at home. I need you two to carry him in, while I grab last week's tests and this unit's study guides."

They peeked inside, and Mary Anne had to suppress a shudder. Skeletons were all well and good, but only when they were the obvious fake kind. The real thing reminded her too much of Halloween and horror movies. But she didn't say anything, only watched as Kristy lifted one end of Mr. Roboto up and out before picking up her own end, grateful that she was left with the feet.

They waited for Mrs. Gibson to gather her things and her keys before heading into the school. Stoneybrook High School was a two-story red brick building with three outbuildings housing a brand-new auditorium, a pool, and a physics lab. With a thousand students and more than two hundred staff members, it was a bustling place from six in the morning to ten at night.

They headed in through a side door and started up the stairs, Mrs. Gibson chatting about some Discovery Channel special she'd taped the night before. They'd reached her second floor classroom, Mr. Roboto swinging slightly between them, when Cary Retlin showed up, roses in one hand, an apologetic smile on his face.

"Those had better not be for me, Retlin," said Mrs. Gibson, setting her files down and digging her keys out of her purse.

"No, Mrs. Gibson. They're for my girlfriend, I hope." He glanced at Kristy and raised an eyebrow, and Mary Anne had to grin at her responding eye roll. All was forgiven there, at least. Now if Charlie would just give up on Mexico ...

"Well, good for you, Retlin." Mrs. Gibson finally got the door open, and she gestured them in. "Mr. Roboto goes in that corner, girls, between my desk and the filing cabinet." She bent to pick her things up, and they filed past her, Cary behind them.

The classroom always smelled odd, like a combination of chemicals and fluids, Mary Anne thought, but today there was a definite scent of pennies, a coppery smell hanging thickly in the air. She and Kristy toted Mr. Roboto over to the desk and stopped. There was a pole there, one that the skeleton obviously was supposed to hang on, but they had no clue as to how he was hooked up.

Mrs. Gibson bustled in after them and set her files on her desk, keys clanking down beside them. "Just leave him there on the floor, girls. I'll set him up later." She turned back to her files as they set Mr. Roboto down, searching for her gradebook. "Let me just put you down for some extra credit ..."

"You ladies smell that?" asked Cary, frowning. He was looking around, obviously trying to spot the source of the odor.

"That penny smell? Yeah, but I don't know where it's coming from," Mary Anne said, looking around as well. The smell seemed to be getting stronger, if that was possible.

"Hey, Mrs. Gibson, do you always leave the lab door open?" They turned to look. Sure enough, the door to the lab was ajar, leaving Mary Anne to wonder if something had been left out the night before. She knew the cleaning staff generally weren't allowed in the lab; instead, students helped keep it clean for extra credit.

Mrs. Gibson frowned. "No, I always lock it before I leave. I check everything in there, too. We wouldn't want anything exploding during the night." She headed over, and they followed like ducks, standing back a few feet as she grabbed the knob and pulled.

The smell was definitely stronger, Mary Anne thought, peering over Kristy's shoulder into the darkened room. It was almost a stench, pennies mixed with something else ... dead skunk maybe? Something like that. But the lab looked like it always did, stools standing on the tables, everything neatly put away in cupboards. A stray pencil or piece of paper here and there, but nothing seemed out of place.

Except the body lying in the far corner.

* * *

They were headed northeast on I-95, going at least ten over the speed limit and talking about the case.

"And why did they call us again?" Temperance Brennan frowned at the blurry pictures tucked into a slim file. "There doesn't seem to be anything odd about this body. I think." She wondered who'd taken the photos. They were almost unnaturally out-of-focus, as if the person taking them hadn't known what they were doing.

Her partner sighed. "Bones, think of it as a compliment. They see a dead body and they think of you." She glared at him. "They're a small town; they have no Homicide Unit, and no experience with suspicious dead bodies. See that photo? The guys don't even know how to take pictures."

So that was the problem. Poor guys had never seen a dead body, and the shock had obviously affected their picture-taking skills. She glanced at Booth, and the steady way he avoided her gaze aroused her suspicions. "What aren't you telling me?"

He finally looked at her. "One of the cops there, the guy assigned to the case, he's an old friend of mine, an Army buddy. He called me up, asked for my help. _Our _help, Bones." He flicked on the turn signal and sped past an old man driving a Chevy. Brennan braced herself as they barely missed clipping the car behind them, then returned her attention to the file.

"They found the body in a high school?" She turned back to him. "Was the victim murdered there or just dumped?"

"Murdered, as far as they can tell. James said there was blood everywhere, but no obvious murder weapon or shoe prints, and they're still working on how the killer and victim even got in the school. They're also working on an ID, and they're gonna need your help. The medical examiner's never had a murder victim before." Booth wove the Tahoe through the traffic, and suddenly they were ahead of the crowd. Brennan let go of the handle she'd been gripping and let out a breath. Sometimes, riding in a car with Booth was like riding with Mario Andretti.

They rode in silence for awhile, Booth studying the nearly empty road, Brennan skimming through the file again. She'd finally decided she'd learned all she could, and was about to toss it into the backseat, when something in one of the photos caught her eye. The body was out of focus, but this ... she frowned. Without actually looking at the object, she couldn't be sure, but it looked like something small and silver. Maybe a piece of jewelry?

She studied it for a moment longer, debating, and decided that she would tell Booth later. They had at least four hours left of a six hour trip, and she could remember to look for the potential evidence later. Besides, mentioning it now meant that they'd be talking about it, and she had other plans for their trip. Instead, she set it down on the back seat, resolving to investigate it later.

She leaned down and unzipped her boots, sliding them off, and leaned the seat back a little, propping her feet on the dashboard. Booth glanced at her and raised an eyebrow, and she grinned. "So, tell me about your friend."

The eyebrow rose higher. "Why? It doesn't have anything to do with the case."

She shrugged. "Remember that book I was reading, about a month ago? The one on how to improve work relationships? You're supposed to ask questions to encourage better communication. I figured this would work." She glanced out the window. "And I'm curious."

He didn't reply, and she was about to give up and turn on the radio, when he finally spoke. "We were in boot camp together, James and I." He snorted. "We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. Most of the other guys there had family in the Army, and they knew what was what, but us ... we stuck together, at first because we had something in common, but then because we became friends.

"Then I went into sniper training, and he did a couple of tours, and we rarely got to see each other, but we never lost touch. Then I joined the Homicide Unit, and he became part of the Crime Unit in his hometown, and now we talk about interesting crimes and our girlfriends." He glanced at her and shrugged. "That answer your question?"

She studied him. They rarely talked about their personal lives in any detail, partly because they were usually on cases, and partly because neither felt completely comfortable with the subject. She sometimes asked about Parker out of politeness, but otherwise ... most of their conversations revolved around cases. She got the feeling that, like her, he didn't enjoy talking about his past.

"Yeah," she finally replied. "That pretty much does." She reached over and turned on the radio, searched for a good station, and settled on one in the middle of a Beatles marathon. She turned back to the window. "That pretty much does."

* * *

It was six in the evening when they arrived in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. Booth drove down Main Street, taking a right onto Hartford Drive, and suddenly they were parked in front of the police station. Small town is right, Brennan thought. No wonder they don't have a Homicide Unit.

They headed inside and checked in at the front desk, where Booth gave the receptionist his charm smile and asked for Sergeant Johnson, while she looked around. It was the typical police station, with plaques on the walls, a worn linoleum floor, and a general air of controlled chaos.

Booth elbowed her, and she looked up to see a man who had to be James Johnson heading their way. He was cute, tall with black hair and deep blue eyes. He greeted Booth with a grin and a handshake, and then he turned to her. "You must be the infamous Bones," he said, and offered his hand. She shook it, glaring at Booth. The nickname was bad enough when he used it; she certainly didn't want anyone else calling her that.

"James, this is Dr. Temperance Brennan. Bones, this is James Johnson."

He smiled at her. "Pleased to meet you, Dr. Brennan. We're glad you guys could come. None of the guys here have any experience with this sort of thing." He shrugged. "Stoneybrook's a small town. No one here's been murdered in over thirty years." He turned and gestured for them to follow, and they headed down a hall.

"We're glad to do it," said Booth. "It's nice to get out of Washington every once in a while." Brennan rolled her eyes. She personally liked staying in the city. D.C. meant the Jeffersonian, her own bed, and Wong Foo's.

James snorted. "I bet it is. How's the big city treating you these days?"

They continued chatting, and Brennan studied the walls. They were painted a dingy grey and covered in photos, many of them cut from newspapers, and citations. James led them around a corner and into a small office, set up with two desks and a pretty redhead. James gestured them in.

"Please, take a seat. This is my partner, Sergeant Megan Tang." The woman stood to greet them, and Brennan couldn't help noticing the look Booth gave James. She'd have to ask him about that later.

They all sat down in uncomfortable plastic chairs, and before she could ask about the case, Megan turned to her with a smile. "I'm sure you want to get to the body and the crime scene, but the ME has gone home for the night, and the high school is on lockdown until tomorrow morning."

"Lockdown?" she asked.

Megan nodded. "Since Columbine, security in high schools has gone up. A teacher and some kids find a body and a bloody crime scene? We assume it's a threat against the school, and it goes into lockdown while we search the premises."

"We didn't find anything suspicious," said James, taking a sip from his coffee mug. Brennan noticed that he was a Steelers fan like Booth, and privately wondered if they'd gotten their matching mugs before or after the recent Super Bowl. "Which isn't to say that it wasn't a threat against the school, but until we have evidence proving otherwise, the Superintendent has asked that the school be reopened, and that we just leave the classroom and lab locked." He took another sip of coffee and made a face. "We really need to get a new coffee maker, Meg," he said, and she rolled her eyes. James rolled his back, then turned to Booth, and the two of them started discussing the Super Bowl. Apparently they had been longtime fans of the Steelers.

"Anyway," Megan said, ignoring the men, "the ME took some better photos of the body for you, and we have the evidence we collected from the crime scene, if you want to look at it tonight. Tomorrow morning, we're set to interview the teacher and students who found the body, and you guys can check out the scene. Tomorrow afternoon is when the ME would like to do the autopsy, if that's okay with you, Dr. Brennan. He wants to assist."

"That's fine," Brennan said, taking the file that Megan held out and opening it. Sure enough, there were better photos of the body, and she could see stab wounds along the torso and a jagged line across the throat. "Have you identified the victim yet?"

"No, we've taken what fingerprints we can and we're running them through AFIS, but we doubt we're going to get a match. She doesn't exactly look like someone who'd be in the system." Megan made a face. "We can try dentals too, if she has any teeth left, but facial reconstruction is going to be difficult. She suffered a lot of damage."

"I've got someone who can probably do it," Brennan said. The poor girl _had_ suffered a lot of damage, and she wondered just what the pictures weren't showing. Bruises were everywhere, and she could see several broken bones. This poor girl hadn't just been stabbed mercilessly; she had been tortured before she died. She continued flipping through the file, finding the list of evidence collected at the scene, and scanned through it. There, five lines down: _Silver charm - cross_, followed by the date, time and initials of the person who collected it. MRT, she noticed. Perfect.

"Can I take a look at this charm you found?" she asked Megan. "The little silver cross?"

"Sure," the sergeant shrugged. "We're not certain that it's probative, since the teacher told us that only students clean that lab, and it could easily have come from one of them. But it was close to the body, so we collected it, just in case." They stood up, and she caught Booth's eye.

"Evidence lock-up," she said, and he nodded.

"We're leaving for dinner in half an hour, with or without you two," he said, turning back to James and gesturing wildly. The guys have moved from football to hockey, and were talking about new rules or something.

Brennan followed Megan out of the office and down the hall, where they turned the corner, as if they were heading back into the lobby. Instead, they went down a flight of stairs, into a dark quiet basement. Fluorescent lighting flickered on when Megan hit the switch, and Brennan could see that their lab was something out of the Stone Age. Ancient microscopes, an odd collection of test tubes and beakers; the place looked as if it hadn't been updated since the late 1960s.

She must have shown her shock, because Megan laughed. "We send most of our evidence to the Bureau lab in Hartford. The only thing of any value down here is the evidence room, and that's just because it has a decent security system." She led Brennan through the "lab", stopping in front of a locked steel door. There was a security pad next to it, and she typed in code, waited a minute, and typed in another code. The door unlocked with a subtle click, and they headed inside.

She watched as Megan found an evidence box and signed it out, balancing it on her hip as she closed the door and entered another security code. They took the box over to one of the tables, and Megan began digging through it, pulling out bags and envelopes. The envelope the charm was in was near the bottom, and Megan gloved up before slicing the bottom of the envelope open.

The charm was small, maybe only a half-inch, and delicate, a tiny silver cross marred only be the blood on its surface. The link on top was missing, most likely broken in the struggle, and Megan frowned. "If this came off as a result of a fight, there should have been more charms around the body, or links to the bracelet, or something. But I searched that entire area several times, and I couldn't find anything else."

"You're thinking this came from a student," Brennan said, holding out her gloved hand for the charm.

"Exactly. The blood on the surface indicates that it was dropped before the victim was stabbed, so it could have been left from the day before, or even the previous week. But ... I don't know; it could've been planted, too. But you'd think the killer would've done that last, so it would be nice and shiny and relatively blood-free."

"Killers aren't exactly predictable," said Brennan, studying the cross. There were no markings on it, no indicators of where it came from.

"Don't I know it," muttered Megan, putting the other bits and pieces of evidence back into the box. She glanced at Brennan and gave her an apologetic smile. "Um, anyway, did you want to look at anything else while we were down here? It's all going to the state Bureau tomorrow morning, by courier, so this is pretty much your last chance." She took the charm back, put it in the original envelope, and grabbed another from a nearby cabinet. She began filling out the evidence form on the outside, and Brennan studied the evidence list again. Nothing jumped out at her, and after everything had been put away again, they headed back upstairs.

Dinner and a drink would be nice, Brennan thought as they went back into the office. A chance to look over the file again before bed, and maybe something would jump out. And if not, there was always tomorrow's autopsy to look forward to.

* * *

Enrico Dominquez sat slumped in the driver's seat of his ancient Bronco. With a cup of lukewarm coffee in one hand and a pair of binoculars in the other, he was ready for his all-night stakeout. It was, the boss had assured him, an important job, and he was determined not to screw it up, unlike his lazy brother. _Idiota_, he thought, glancing out the window again. The pretty scientist had finally turned her light off, and he hoped she was comfortable. He sure as hell wasn't, but it was all going to be worth it. He was going to be with his entire family again, and the scientist ... well, if his research was true, so was she.

* * *

She was half-asleep when the ringing of a phone jolted her awake. Years of pressuring her mom and Watson had finally led to an extension in her bedroom, and while it was normally a nice thing to have, there were times when she wished she hadn't been so stubborn.

A nightmarish day followed by a nightmare-filled night was making her cranky, and she didn't bother to mask her annoyance when she answered the phone. "What?"

"Kristy?" Sergeant Johnson sounded uncharacteristically anxious, and she immediately felt guilty for snapping at him. He didn't deserve it; he wasn't a murderer.

"Yeah, it's me. What's up?" She sat up in bed and ran a hand through her hair, wincing when she caught a tangle.

"I was just checking to make sure you were still coming in early. We have a couple of experts here, and I know they want to talk to you and the others."

Right, right. Early meeting with a friend of the sergeant's, a man in the FBI who was used to dead bodies and lots of blood. "Yeah, I'm still coming in. Mom's giving me a ride; Sam doesn't have class until ten."

"Fantastic," he muttered, and she could hear him shuffling papers around. Obviously he'd been up for awhile, and she wondered if he'd slept as horribly as she had. Probably not; he _was_ a police detective. "So we'll meet you in Mrs. Gibson's classroom in an hour?"

"Sure thing," she replied. They said their goodbyes, and as she hung up the phone, she wondered just what the morning would bring.

Forty-five minutes later, her mom dropped her off in front of the school, where Cary and Mary Anne were waiting. As she drove off, Kristy headed over to the front doors. Mary Anne looked like she hadn't slept a wink, and her red, puffy attested to the fact that she'd probably spent most of that time crying. Cary looked slightly better, but the circles under his eyes and the grim smile he gave her were a testament to his real feelings. "Complications make life interesting," he'd once told her, but she could tell that this 'complication' wasn't _that_ kind of interesting.

"Should we go in?" she asked, and Cary shrugged.

"They're already here," he said, gesturing to the two cars nearby, both armed with lights and government license plates. "So maybe yeah?" He raised an eyebrow at them, and Mary Anne nodded.

"I think we should. It's always good to be early, anyway." They opened the doors and headed inside, taking the nearest flight of stairs up, where bright sunlight flooded through skylights and drab green lockers needed a desperate coat of paint.

Entering Mrs. Gibson's classroom, they discovered the teacher already inside, talking with Sergeants Johnson and Tang and another man who had to be Sergeant Johnson's FBI friend. He was tall and darkly handsome, wearing a suit and tie, and, oddly enough, Converse sneakers. All of them turned, and Sergeant Johnson smiled.

"Hello girls, Cary. Thanks for coming in. This is Agent Booth from the FBI; he'd like to ask you a couple of questions."

Agent Booth smiled at them. "Nice to meet you. Now, I'm sure you've gone over this stuff too many times already, and you probably want to just forget everything, but unfortunately, you're gonna have to go over it all again. Now, ladies, Mrs. Gibson tells me that you met her in the parking lot yesterday morning ..."

They were going over their story for the second time that morning when a woman appeared at the connecting door. She was pretty, with brown hair pulled into a ponytail, gray slacks, and a blue blouse with the sleeves rolled up; latex gloves were on her hands. She headed over to one of the desks, where a file folder lay open. She shuffled through the file, found whatever she was looking for, and headed back into the lab, all without saying a word. She has that distracted air, Kristy thought, the same air that Watson often has when going over insurance stuff.

Sergeant Johnson raised an eyebrow at Agent Booth, who shrugged. "I've pretty much learned to leave her alone when she looks like that. She'll tell us if she finds anything interesting." He smiled at them. "That's my associate Dr. Brennan, by the way. Now, Cary, you said you met them at the door of the classroom, right?"

They went through the whole thing again, and Mary Anne was describing the penny smell of the classroom when the woman reappeared at the door, frowning.

"What's up?" Agent Booth asked, raising an eyebrow.

"The blood spatter patterns ... they don't match any of the stab wounds on our victim." She looked confused, and Kristy couldn't blame her. Blood spatter patterns matching _what_, exactly? And who would want to look at all that blood in the first place?

"What do you mean, they don't match?" Now Agent Booth looked intrigued, as did the two Sergeants. Mrs. Gibson merely looked ill, much as she had the day before, while Mary Anne looked as confused as Kristy felt. Cary had a vaguely interested look, and Kristy had to wonder what he was thinking. Even though they'd been dating for nearly two years now, she still couldn't read him as well as she'd like to.

"Come in and I'll show you, Booth." Dr. Brennan gestured, and the FBI agent followed her into the lab. Sergeant Tang followed, and Sergeant Johnson looked at them.

"You can come in if you want, but aside from the removal of the body, it's the same. But if you do decide to come in, remember - don't touch anything."

Even though she knew the blood would still be there, she was curious about the spatter patterns, and her head won out over her stomach. She followed them in.

The room looked the same, and smelled nearly as bad. The removal of the body had sort of gotten rid of the dead skunk odor, but everything else was still there and stinking to high heaven. Kristy wanted to gag, but held back. She felt Cary's comforting hand on her back, and the urge to gag slowly went away.

Dr. Brennan was standing in the corner, just inside the circle of blood, and gesturing as she spoke. "Our victim was stabbed several times in the abdomen, and then her throat was slashed. She was likely standing up when she was stabbed, but it's possible that she was already unconscious and lying on the floor. Either way, the blood spatter doesn't match up.

"If she was standing," and she gestured to Sergeant Tang, who went over and stood next to her, "the knife went in here," she made a stabbing motion into the sergeant's gut, "and the blood would spurt out there when the killer removed the knife to stab again. So what we should be seeing are relatively straight lines and cast-off from the knife. Instead ..." She stood back, and they all leaned forward to study the blood.

Instead of the nice lines the woman had described, Kristy saw that the blood was in a circle pattern, almost as if someone had stood in the corner and turned in a circle, spraying blood from a spray bottle. "Weird," she muttered.

"Also," Dr. Brennan continued, "where's the void?"

"The void, Bones?" Agent Booth sounded as if he was mocking her, but his expression was perfectly serious. Ha, thought Kristy, he's totally teasing her. A lifetime's experience with two older brothers had made her an expert.

Apparently Dr. Brennan thought the same, because she rolled her eyes at him before continuing. "If you're facing someone when you stab them, some of the blood's going to land on you, leaving a void where you were standing. Where is that void?" Again, they all studied the spatter, and Kristy saw Sergeant Johnson shaking his head.

"You're saying that our victim was killed elsewhere and dumped here?"

She nodded. "Exactly. And I'm betting that the blood samples you took from the floor and wall here won't match our victim's."

"Then why was she dumped here? Other than scaring the students and parents, what purpose would that serve?" Sergeant Tang's arms were crossed over her chest, and she was exchanging looks with her partner.

"I don't know - I don't work motive. That's Booth's thing. I do think that this whole this has all

been staged, though. How many people would go to the trouble of dumping a body _and_ squirting blood all around to make it look as if she were murdered here?"

How many people indeed, Kristy wondered. How many people indeed.

* * *

End Chapter One

* * *

Coming up in Chapter Two: Staple It Together: An autopsy, several conversations, a note and an escape. 

Please remember to review!


End file.
